November 16, 2009

Bean Stringfellow, Wagner’s agent, said Monday that eight clubs have called to express interest in Wagner, a Type A free agent. … Boston, Atlanta, Washington, Houston and Baltimore are on the list, according to Stringfellow, along with three teams that preferred to remain anonymous. … The unnamed teams are probably among the contenders interested in upgrading their late-inning relief: the Tigers, Cubs, Mariners, Rangers, White Sox, Rays and Marlins. …

April 22, 1959 Heading into 7th inning in their game against the A’s, the White Sox only held a small 8-6 lead. However, they had no reason to worry. In the 7th the White Sox would score 11 runs on 1 hit. That inning would feature a single, two players reaching on errors (plus an additional error), a base-loaded hit batsman, and 10 walks; 8 of them with the bases loaded. Although their lone single made it into RF, Chicago’s three outs never even made it past the pitcher. Here is the play by play: …

Long before Bobby Jenks was closing out games for the White Sox, the flamethrower was lighting up radar guns and providing colorful quotes for newspapers in small towns like Butte, Mont. and Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. While casual fans of the game were first introduced to Jenks when the then 24-year-old rookie fired the final pitch in Chicago’s 2005 championship, his journey from an Idaho cabin to baseball’s biggest stage was hardly smooth sailing. …

White Sox infielder Gordon Beckham placed fifth in the American League rookie of the year balloting announced today. Oakland reliever Andrew Bailey won the award and received 13 first-place ballots. Beckham received two second-place ballots and four third-place votes.

After winning two rookie of the year awards voted on by his peers, Gordon Beckham got dissed by the writers.

After sweeping the Players Choice and Sporting News honors, Beckham got just two second-place and four third-place votes in the more respected, more official Baseball Writers Association of America AL ROY voting, released Monday. …

SoxNet.net has learned that the Chicago White Sox have had preliminary discussions with the Anaheim Angels and San Diego Padres on a potential 3 way deal which would involve Paul Konerko, Adrian Gonzalez, and Angel and White Sox prospects. …

The exact details aren’t known but the main premise is the Sox sending Konerko and prospects and getting Adrian Gonzales from the Padres.

Why would the Padres and the Angels do that? Are the Sox emptying the farm?

UPDATE: Mark Gonzales tries to analyze the situation. He says the Padres would want Dan Hudson, Tyler Flowers, Jordan Danks and another minor-league prospect, perhaps from the Angels. That sounds like a lot. That would be a complete cleaning of the farm. Cot’s says ‘2010:$4.75 million, 2011:$5.6 million club option (no buyout)’ about Gonzales’ contract (2011 was 5.5 but due to the 2008 All-Star selection it increased to 5.6). That’s 2 cheap years but the price is too steep. Gonzales had a very good 2009 (B-R: .958 OPS, 166 OPS+, 119 BB / 109 K, .278 BABIP; Fangraphs: .402 wOBA, 6.3 WAR, .280 BABIP), but you still trade 18-24 years of cost-controlled production for 2. The Sox would be giving up a lot. I wouldn’t empty the farm for 2 years of Adrian.